It is about time there was a "sea" change in Hollywood. I am so happy to see so many diverse faces, women of color, and men of color in movies, as political pundits, on sitcoms, etc. Maybe soon we can have a minority run a major movie studio. Wouldn't that be amazing!

I am ready for my screen test! Someone contact me soon! :)


Hollywood's Views on Race May Be in for a Change
Q&A: Producer Joe Pichirallo on Marketing Black Films to White Audiences, Box-Office Success and the 'Bradley Effect'
By Claude Brodesser-akner Published: October 30, 2008LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) -- Is there a "Bradley Effect" when it comes to the box office?
'The Secret Life of Bees'For those perhaps not paying close attention to the presidential election, with Sen. Barack Obama ahead in every national poll, political pundits have been feverishly inserting the words "Bradley Effect" into articles and sound bites in an effort to ratchet up the election-eve drama. The expression explains in racial terms the 1982 defeat of Tom Bradley, a black Democrat who was at the time the mayor of Los Angeles, by his white Republican rival, George Deukmejian, in their quest for the governorship of California: The theory goes that despite polls predicting a Bradley win, white voters pulled the lever for Mr. Deukmejian. A quick look at Hollywood's box office results would seem to let some air out of the theory, at least when it comes to how Americans elect to entertain themselves: The success of two new films with largely black casts -- "The Secret Life of Bees" and the thriller "Lakeview Terrace" -- suggests that marketers' conventional wisdom about how race influences purchasing decisions may be in need of re-examination. Having served as a producer on both movies, Joe Pichirallo has gained a firsthand understanding of how Americans consider -- or ignore -- race. Each film has over-performed, with "Lakeview Terrace" cresting $40 million domestically, having opened at No. 1 at the box office last month, and "The Secret Life of Bees" cruising past $20 million, having opened at No. 3. Mr. Pichirallo oversees film for The Gold Co., a production venture headed by talent manager Eric Gold, whose clients include Jim Carrey and Ellen DeGeneres. But before joining The Gold Co., Mr. Pichirallo was head of feature film production and development for Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. He's also been a senior executive at Fox Searchlight Pictures, where he oversaw "Antwone Fisher," and at Universal's Focus Features, where he supervised both "Hollywoodland" and "Something New." Madison & Vine: Settle this for us: Is there a Bradley Effect at the box office, too? Joe Pichirallo: Let me put it this way: The conventional wisdom of the Hollywood studios is that films that have primarily African-American themes or actors in them are not are not going to do well, because they don't do well overseas. And in the last few years, the rule of thumb is that 60% of box office is actually going to come from outside the U.S. So if you look at even the most successful films that cross over, like "Barbershop," its domestic gross was $70 million, but its foreign box office was, like, $1.2 million. ... So if [black films] get made, you're forced to do them at independent [movie] budget levels, on the theory that you have to make most of your revenue on the domestic side. M&V: How does that affect how we portray black America on the big screen? Mr. Pichirallo: If you're looking at something like "The Secret Life of Bees," on one level if you didn't know the business, you'd say, "Well, here's a best-selling novel. This should be made for the standard Hollywood budgets of $40 million, $50 million, $60 million." But the concern would be that you'll never hit those levels in box office, so you're immediately put into a situation of seeing it made in the $12 million range. M&V: How soon did race enter the making and marketing of "The Secret Life of Bees"? Mr. Pichirallo: You start thinking about it right off the bat. Who are going to be the leads? Are we going to be able to get people with name value to play those leads? ... We also knew we had two things going for us: The book was a best-seller for a very long time, and the book was not perceived as an exclusively African-American book. The underlying material had an existing appeal to a white audience. M&V: And so "Bees" isn't behaving like a typical film with a black cast, is it? Mr. Pichirallo: No. And let me just say something about the second weekend of the film, that shows it's playing both ways: In Los Angeles, at The Grove -- which couldn't be more of a white, upscale, affluent theater -- it out-grossed the Magic Johnson theater, which is the leading African-American theater in Los Angeles. And so that tells you right there that the movie is really playing. Most theaters aimed at predominantly whiter audiences actually held [onto their "Bees" audiences] better in the second weekend than those with African-American audiences. Seattle had just a 12% drop. Those are phenomenal holds for any kind of movie, and give indication that it's reaching a diverse audience. M&V: What can we learn about Americans' racial attitudes from "Lakeview Terrace"? Mr. Pichirallo: We knew we had to walk a fine line, because it's not often that the so-called bad guy in a movie is an African-American. Sam Jackson ultimately is terrorizing this interracial couple who lives next door to him. It's headed toward $40 million because white [audiences] went to see it, and we didn't get any real serious complaints from the African-American audience. They embraced the film and saw the film. The danger would have been that they would say, "You're holding up a negative stereotype." M&V: So if all it takes is some forethought about making a movie that's relatable to everyone, why not make more money by making black films that appeal to white audiences, too? Mr. Pichirallo: [Studios] don't want to restrict their gross, but when they sense that the material is not going to cross over -- and they may often be wrong about this -- they're not going to waste their money chasing an audience that they don't think is coming out. And that's when it gets to be circular: What is the chicken, and what is the egg? Are the audiences not responding because they're not marketing to them and so they're not turning out, or are they right that the audience is not finding it appealing, and so was never coming out? M&V: We've talked about how the box office reveals the racial attitudes of moviegoers, but has the marketing of Sen. Barack Obama as a post-racial candidate changed anything about Hollywood's attitude toward the marketing of black films? Mr. Pichirallo: You're going to see that as we get more sophisticated and evolved as a culture, we're going to have multicultural-themed movies that are going to cross over more. What we're tying to do is break conventional perception that if you have a black-focused story that it's only going to appeal to blacks and therefore you should only market to blacks. M&V: Is the lesson, then, that film ghettos are bad for show business? Mr. Pichirallo: I think we have to work hard from a cultural and social standpoint to break that, but from an economic standpoint it doesn't make any sense, either: You don't want to limit your audience. If you're going to limit your audience, you end up having to do the films for lower budgets, and therefore it gets harder to get those movies made, because some of the bigger actors won't do them. M&V: So, what is the marketing lesson from Obama '08? Mr. Pichirallo: The lesson is, Don't assume past performance dictates future results. Obama has not run as a "black" candidate. The world is changing. Our culture is changing. You have to change with it.

I think this is great for our industry. Advertising and reaching customers is changing very quickly. I made the decision earlier this year to do more interactive work and approach clients who were interested in Web 2.0 options. This article and quote from Steve Seabolt reinforces how quickly our industry is changing. Enjoy!

Karen

Sims Venture Into Outside World Full of Advertising

Latest Version of Most Popular PC Title Will House Dynamic In-Game Ads

By Abbey Klaassen 

Published: October 06, 2008

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When "The Sims 3" launches in February, the popular video game promises to be more realistic than ever, thanks to improved graphics, better processing power and an increase in ads.

Now playing in 'Sims 3:' 'Iron Man' and 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.'

Yes, an increase in ads. 

Electronic Arts, maker of "Sims 3," is working with IGA to provide dynamic in-game ads -- which can be switched in and out of the game via an internet connection -- to the latest version of what has become the world's most-played PC game. In its first new version in five years, "Sims" players will be able to venture beyond their houses and lots out into Pleasantville, where they can go to the movie theater, the sports arena or the grocery store. It's a more open experience, akin to newer online virtual worlds, although it's still a single-player game. 

'Very organic'
"Advertising is very organic to the 'Sims 3' experience," said Steve Seabolt, VP-global brand development for the Sims label. Movie-theater posters and billboards will host ads, and EA will continue to integrate brands into the gameplay. 

Mr. Seabolt cited an example involving an over-the-counter pain remedy. "Suppose your Sim had a tough day, or the Sim kids are out of control, maybe the Sim worked out -- that could be a moment for that particular pain relief," he said. "And they take that pain relief and feel restored, better rested ... less on edge." 

Sims has previously done integrated deals, which can run into the seven figures, with retailersH&M and Ikea, letting users download branded content into the game. But Mr. Seabolt said H&M wanted to put billboards in the game to promote the fact that users could dress their Sims in the retailer's fashions. IGA now will sell those dynamic ad placements, and EA will sell the integrated ones, but where they can work together, they will. 

Key to dynamic ads
Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA, said the key to dynamic ads is that they have developed standards that can work inside myriad games to create a network that gets advertisers more reach. However, he said, unlike many console games, "Sims" doesn't necessarily need to be bought as part of a network because it has such a broad reach. He said EA expects sales of "Sims 3" to eclipse those of "Sims 2." 

According to Interpret's Gamemeasure, "Sims 2" reached about 16.5 million gamers, half of whom played within the past month. The average "Sims" gamer will spend 1.7 hours with the game per sitting and has spent 47.6 hours with the game in total. 

Jay Krihak, senior partner-group director at MEC Interaction, said "Sims" 1 and "Sims 2" sold enough copies to warrant a look at "Sims 3," but he said the beauty of dynamic in-game ads is that marketers can take the time to see how the game sells in the first few weeks before deciding whether to dive in. What's more, time-consuming custom integrations can be created after the game officially launches. 

Filling in the gaps
"You can solicit feedback from the community and get a sense of what the game's missing and chance that as a marketer you can address that," he said. 

Indeed, advertisers share with game makers a desire to create something that fits within the game. 

"If there's a way to enhance the gaming experience, there could be value for the advertiser," said Amanda Richman, senior VP-director of digital services, MediaVest. She also said in-game advertising could become even more important in a recession because it brings with it an escapist mind-set. "We may be seeing even greater demand in this economy at these times." 

See the below article from Ad Age. As a small firm this trend is SCARY to me. So many clients are adding in house designers to do all aspects of their marketing and communications. I agree we need to position ourselves as "brand experts" we are working on this now in our new marketing collateral. However, I wonder if those same clients are willing to pay the same or MORE for strategy. Our world is changing....

Let Them Sweat Small Stuff and Pay You for Big Ideas

Posted by Tom Martin on 09.30.08 @ 11:56 AM

Tom Martin

It's budget time. And chances are you're sitting in the same meetings I am with a client asking you to do more with less. Over the last 60 days, I've probably sat in half a dozen of these meetings. You might think that would get moderately depressing, but actually it has been inspiring.

In virtually every one of those meetings the client's goal wasn't necessarily to spend less money with our agency, but for the client to receive more value and impact from the dollars it was spending with and through us.

And along the way, two very interesting themes have emerged.

The first is the notion of high-value vs. low-value agency services. Traditionally the AOR relationship included a client using agencies for their high-level strategic, media, public relations, interactive and creative firepower but also for the routine grunt work. This grunt work includes things like resizing print and banner ads or simple (often factual) copy changes. Everyone knows it isn't rocket science and truth be told, the agency adds very little "value" in these transactions, but it was just easier (and sometimes less expensive) to outsource all of this to the client's AOR agency.

But in today's rocky economic world, savvy clients are beginning to re-examine how they work with their agencies. In some cases (retail for instance) clients are seeing that it might actually be cheaper for them to have an entry-level designer on staff to handle the routine. In fact I had this very conversation with a client just a week ago. Yet, rather than be upset that our firm might lose billings, I'm excited. Why? Because he doesn't want to just let the savings drop to his bottom line. He wants to invest some of that savings with us in the utilization of high-level thinking. He wants to open projects designed to solve strategic problems and have our agency's best thinkers assigned to those projects.

In other words, he wants to invest his dollars in the unique agency capabilities that he cannot do himself or afford to bring "in-house" because it would just be too expensive and used too infrequently. Thus, everyone wins. He saves money and gets to hire a resource that can do the routine faster and less expensively than we can and we get to offload the mind-numbing drudgery type work that none of our designers actually like doing anyhow. And the whole thing represents a cost savings for him and is revenue neutral for us because we're redeploying those low value hours to new clients or high value hours for this client.

The second interesting theme is the movement from mass media to micromedia planning. For most of our firm's clients, media spend is the single biggest expenditure in the budget. So it's the first place their bosses look to make cuts. Thus, clients want more efficient media plans that show quantifiable results. Because while their bosses are demanding expense cutting they aren't lowering expectations or goals for the coming year.

Initially, you might find yourself instinctively recoiling at the idea of helping a client decrease their media spend when you think about the loss of income associated with such a drastic move. However, what I'm finding is that here again, clients aren't just dropping all the savings to the bottom line. They're asking us to think about how we can create more efficient and effective marketing outreach programs. We're being given the opportunity to move mass media spend into micromedia channels like online, social marketing and direct outreach or events. Here again, the net net is the client is spending less while getting a more effective plan and the whole thing is revenue neutral for us. Another win-win.

So as you begin to work your way through the upcoming budgeting process with each of your clients, ask yourself what the value versus cost equation of your recommendation/contract looks like and if it isn't the best it can be, fix it -- proactively. You'll do yourself and your client a great service and likely ensure a longer lasting relationship.